Comments and Analysis from John Robertson on the Middle East, Central Asia, and U.S. Policy

Monday, March 1, 2010

"Iraqcracy" - like Tammany Hall, Daley's Chicago?

Nice NYT reporting on Iraqi electioneering - but with Iraqi helicopters overhead, and US Apache helicopters circling over those, and people being ordered to attend rallies . . . I have to wonder: what's to come of it? And for this, perhaps a million Iraqis killed or maimed, millions more dislocated internally or in foreign exile, more than 4000 US military killed and tens of thousands of American lives destroyed, and mega-billions of dollars - desperately needed back home - up in smoke.

When it's all said and done - and we still won't reach that point for a long time to come, if ever - will it all have been (as Madeleine Albright once said of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children killed by post-1991 sanctions) "worth it"?

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

"worth it"? Right now I think most people would say no. However, maybe the US will be successful in constructing a democracy there and having a peaceful Iraq 50 or 100 years from now something that has never happened in Iraq's past-a dictatorless Iraq. How many more would have died under Saddam's regime? There is hope right now for a peaceful Iraqi government, is that hope worth the millions that have died so far? No, but how many people could be saved in the future if a peaceful regime is actually placed in control? I guess just food for thought, we cannot change the past and hopefully we will start reconstructing the state of Iraq and get some competent leaders in office if any exist.

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I've been a professor of ancient Near Eastern and modern Middle Eastern history at Central Michigan University since 1982. I was formally trained as an Assyriologist and Ancient Near East specialist [Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania], but since 1984, I have also been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Islamic and "modern" Middle Eastern history.
My book, "A Short History of Iraq," will soon be published by OneWorld Publications. You can find most of my published opinion pieces at the "War in Context" site. My scholarly publications appear in various academic journals and edited volumes.